Public Accounts Committee on Dec. 14th, 2023

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I'll put you on the list to come back to.

Yes, Mr. Desjarlais.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

On a point of order, thank you to my colleague who believes I have the floor, the chair of OGGO. To our chair here in public accounts—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

What's your point of order, Mr. Desjarlais?

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

I'm trying to respond to you, Chair. You're making an accusation that I think I'm entitled to respond to.

I'm trying to say that this is well in order. Now that we're at this point, I think we could probably call a vote.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Mr. Desjarlais, we don't call votes until the debate has collapsed. I have a number of people who wish to speak, so I'll turn now to Ms. Goodridge.

It's nice to see you. You have the floor.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This is identical, word for word, to a motion that was moved when I was in an environment meeting on, I believe, November 28 by Mr. van Koeverden. I still don't think that this is necessarily within complete federal jurisdiction. I think, given the fact that the federal government has lost a couple of court cases recently to the Government of Alberta, that this is perhaps not the best way of building those relationships. It at least has some semblance of making sense in the environment committee.

When I was told that this was being discussed at public accounts, I was absolutely flabbergasted. I am having a very hard time understanding how this could even get to a space where this is something that public accounts has decided, "Well, environment hasn't ruled on this fast enough, so let's bring this to public accounts."

I'm very much at a loss for words. I believe that it is absolutely inappropriate for this to be at this committee. I would urge members to vote against this. I think that this is something that needs to be dealt with, if even dealt with at the federal level, at the environment committee. Frankly, I believe that this should be dealt with by the Government of Alberta in one of their committees.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Sinclair-Desgagné, the floor is yours.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think this motion falls within the work of this committee. The connection was clearly established by Mr. McCauley a little earlier.

I want to inform colleagues who are joining us just to discuss this motion that we can ask the Office of the Auditor General, and so the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development, to do audits. To address the concerns voiced by my colleague who spoke before me, I would say that the connection with our committee is very clear.

However, I have enormous reservations about this motion. I believe that the responsibilities of provincial regulatory agencies and governments should not be discussed at the federal level. As Ms. Shanahan said, we are in a federation, and a federation must respect the provinces' jurisdictions.

I want to move an amendment that I think will have the support of other parties. I would like to reduce the motion to a minimum and simply keep the last paragraph with the colon, which starts with "that in relation to the Follow-up Study on Report 3". I would then keep only point 5, in which the committee requests that the Office of the Auditor General, through the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development, conduct an audit of environmental protections around Canada's waterbodies, especially those on Indigenous lands.

Obviously, this subject is very important to us. While I propose to remove any reference to matters that do not fall under federal jurisdiction, it is very important that the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development do an audit of the condition of water everywhere within Canada.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I'm going to repeat this.

Ms. Sinclair-Desgagné, I just want to be sure about what you are proposing.

Do you want to keep paragraph 3? Do you want to cut something from paragraph 3?

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

I propose to keep paragraph 3 and point 5. The amendment has been sent to you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Okay.

There is an amendment to the motion that would remove paragraph one and paragraph two. It would keep paragraph three, which begins, “That, in relation to the Follow-up Study”; cut items 1, 2, 3 and 4; and maintain point 5.

I have a speaking list. I'll continue to follow that.

Ms. Khalid, you're on that list. Go ahead, please.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Thanks, Chair.

I'm not exactly sure how that language plays out in the actual body of the motion right now. Could you perhaps walk me through which words are being deleted?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Paragraph one begins with “Whereas”. It's gone.

Paragraph two begins with “whereas, the Alberta Regulator”. It's proposed that this be removed.

“That the committee express”—that will be removed.

The entire paragraph four in the English, which begins with “That, in relation to the Follow-up Study” and ends with “the committee”, would remain.

Items 1, 2, 3 and 4 are to be cut, and 5 would remain: “Request that the Office of the Auditor General, through the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, conduct an audit of environmental protections of Canada's waterbodies, especially those on Indigenous lands.”

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Thank you very much for that clarification, Chair.

I am against this amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Okay. We will have a role call vote, I'm sure, in due course.

Mr. Stewart, you have the floor to discuss this. Again, this is on the amendment to the motion. The amendment seeks to remove several parts of it.

[Jake Stewart, Conservative, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

I think the amendment is decent. I don't know a lot about provincial politics in Alberta. I will be very clear on that. I certainly don't know anything about this tailings pond. It's far out of my jurisdiction.

At the same time, for us as federal members of Parliament, the last thing we want to do is to be too heavy-handed with provinces by instructing them what to do with their time and with their industries. I think that's pretty heavy-handed.

I was thinking of Mr. Desjarlais' comments earlier. He wasn't wrong about the duty to consult with first nations. I went through that a lot in New Brunswick. It gets dicey when provincial governments and provincial bodies are consulting with the first nations chiefs of the communities. Sometimes you could get agreement within the first nations communities, but then there might be a grassroots element from within the community that didn't align with the council and chief of the actual community. Then you would have different factions, and that would really complicate matters for provincial bodies. I did see how sometimes opportunities were lost because of the differences of opinion among the greater indigenous community.

At the same time, I think the amendment is decent. It removes a lot of the aspects that I think were heavy-handed. I think it's okay at this point.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Leslie, you have the floor. Go ahead, please.

[Branden Leslie, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the members. It's the first time I'm visiting this committee.

I just came from the environment committee, where I had the pleasure—this is not the right word—of hearing responses from Minister Guilbeault. It was the first time I have had the chance to speak with the minister at the environment committee. It was the first time in 262 days that the minister had appeared.

The Alberta Energy Regulator has appeared twice at the environment committee during that same time. By my estimation, the federal environment committee should have appearances by the environment minister of this federal government more frequently than by a provincial regulatory body.

To have them thrown under the bus for political reasons as we are heading into the Christmas season, I think, is something that we should not really be focusing a lot of time on, given the frustrations that provinces have with this government and have rightfully already aired publicly. Most recently the premier of the Northwest Territories spoke out against the cost of the carbon tax for his constituents. We have had, obviously, headaches within the prairie provinces over natural resource regulations, particularly in the aftermath of Bill C-69, the “no more pipelines” legislation, being slapped down by the Supreme Court for its unconstitutionality. Then the federal Liberal government just decided to go further. They decided to impose the “Ottawa knows best” approach on provinces once again with new methane emissions being proposed and with the clean electricity regulations that most definitely are going to be ruled unconstitutional, particularly given the reference case of the Impact Assessment Agency and Bill C-69.

All of that said, I think it's frustrating that provinces are having to deal with what seems like a concerted effort by the federal government from Ottawa attacking them.

The reason I came and joined this committee was to look at the same motion that we saw at the environment committee, where the Liberals tabled it because they wanted to use it to distract. They want to divide and to distract provinces and Canadians, and it is so very frustrating. I think for the good of our federation, it's just time to stop.

If you actually want to work with provinces on issues like tailings pond seepage or regulations, you need to be an active partner in working with provincial governments and not just say you're going to work with them and then impose your measures from Ottawa.

Mr. Chair, in relation to the specific amendment to this motion, I agree that it is decent. I would propose an additional amendment that would remove the unnecessary third paragraph that states its disappointment, because I don't think it's the role of the federal government through the public accounts committee to relay disappointment to a provincial regulatory body.

I would move a subamendment to the amendment that we remove paragraph three.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Paragraph three is already out. The only paragraph that the Bloc is—

[Branden Leslie, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

That's supportable then.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

You still have the floor.

[Branden Leslie, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Just to clarify, Mr. Chair, the third paragraph, “That the committee express its disappointment” is currently being amended out.

[A voice]

Yes.

[Branden Leslie, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

I believe I could support that amendment.